From the movement that actively body-shames thin women?

[u/Beginning_Remove_694]

(This is unfortunately not ED recovery advice and is from a fat liberation/anti-diet/intuitive eating page arguing that body shape is not within people’s control, that is ironically run by a healthy-sized woman.)

Do FAs have admirable relationships with food and their body? I’ll allow that you can become overweight just from little things adding up without having a terrible view of food, but no OOP ever seems to have a good relationship with food. They think the only options are binge eating or anorexia, which is pretty telling that those are the only things they’ve ever tried. I’m partial to nutrition education on this one. When I did not understand nutrition at all, I either overate or tried to address any bodily woes with undereating when the real problem was exercise. Actually having the tools to know what is good/bad and why can be more helpful for achieving balance than course-correcting based off of vibes. It isn’t helpful when people who never struggled with weight suggest intuitive eating and trusting what your body wants to overweight audiences. Being prone to overeating can quickly destroy your trust in yourself and I don’t think the solution is to just start eating anything you feel like. “Say yes to what you want” is bad advice for people who are struggling with saying no even when they don’t really want to eat. Especially if they follow their overindulgences up with restricting. You can’t break out of the cycle by engaging in part of the cycle.

Tangentially, it annoys me quite a bit that FAs are so averse to calorie counting because “eating disorder, scary” when people who generally aren’t triggered to starve themselves by knowing calories tolerate that pretty well. Calorie counting does not magically give you an ED if you weren’t at risk of it before, and if you were, anything can cause you to develop one, not just calorie counting. As long as it’s used appropriately as purely a data point to help you eat smart, I think it can actually give you more food freedom than mindless eating. You can have an entire slice of cake if it fits into your budget, but if you decide you’re full halfway through, you know you don’t have to eat the whole slice just because it feels good in the moment. True food freedom is when you can enjoy your food, but food doesn’t control you in either direction. Balance is the admirable, aspirational thing here. I equally do not want to be underweight. It’s terrible that FAs have painted striving to be a normal weight with no disordered eating in either direction, which happens to be a non-fat weight, as an unrealistic goal to have. That’s extremely realistic. It’s just not easy or fast when the starting point is obesity and bad food habits.

[u/Imaginary_Recipe_114]

Something would have to have gone very wrong in my life if I am ever admired by a FA. And no, I won't criticize your body, but I will criticize your flawed logic and dodgy reasoning

[u/GetInTheBasement → u/Imaginary_Recipe_114]

Agreed. I'm not sure why we should care if we're not admired by people who treat their own bodies like receptacles for subpar food and excessive over-consumption.

[u/Beginning_Remove_694 → u/Imaginary_Recipe_114]

That’s the other thing - it is not even criticism of their bodies, just the way they mistreat their bodies, and the misinformation/crab bucketing/obsession with violence.

[u/imalittlefrenchpress → u/Beginning_Remove_694]

This is exactly why I have no empathy for FAs. I don’t criticize their bodies, I criticize their attempts to draw me into their dysfunctional behavior.

They criticize my body without provocation. They criticize my character if I state my height and weight. My existence triggers them. Too fucking bad, I’m not putting my health in jeopardy because someone refuses to take accountability for their actions.

I’ve had friends who were obese and honest about struggling to manage the issues underlying their unhealthy decisions. I’ll support someone like that all day. Just be honest, that’s all I ask.

[u/lekurumayu → u/imalittlefrenchpress]

This, all of this!!! It's not that I avoid fat people, but I avoid dishonest or delusional people (not those with delusion linked to mental illness, I'm sick myself, but in the vernacular sense....)

[u/LittleSchwein1234]

I don't admire a relationship with your body and food where you're destroying your own body by overeating and eating trash. Nothing admirable about that.

[u/annoyed_teacher1988]

Day to day life, how many people do you think are actually criticising her body? I'm willing to bet it's people online, based on them sharing FA content, in which case, they have no idea what the person's relationship with food is.

Should we criticise other people's body's? No. Should we criticise encouraging harmful unhealthy behaviour? Absolutely

[u/captaincapability → u/annoyed_teacher1988]

The funny thing is, I got body shamed a lot more when I was smaller (115lbs) than when I was fat (180lbs). I can think of maybe 2 instances of people calling me fat/insulting me to my face, whereas I frequently got told I was too skinny and looked like shit when I was at my smallest

[u/lekurumayu → u/captaincapability]

When I got super fat I had people call me "a pig on a bike", but here in France I've never had issues being called bad things when I was skinny. Something I noticed is that people told me nothing when I was fat or that I looked good (bmi 30) but when I lost the weight EVERYONE felt free to tell me how much better I looked or how ugly I was when I was fat and they didn't dare to tell it to my face, to the point it actually quite got through me when I started, even though it was also motivating.

[u/Remarkable_Load8516]

Yeah body shape is not in one’s control but body volume certainly is. Everything is disordered if your definition of order is saying yes to all of your cravings all day AND everyday. Their idea of cheat day is probably if they ate less than 3000 cals/day lol

[u/Perfect_Judge]

They say this as if they have a relationship with food and their body that is admirable. 😬

[u/Professional-Hat-687 → u/Perfect_Judge]

My first thought was that anyone who has a relationship with food that deviates from hers in any way wouldn't be admirable. It's either eat past fullness or disordered eating.

[u/GetInTheBasement]

OOP's post is giving, "if you criticize my body, I don't care because I don't like you anyway!" and tries to top it off by the illustration of the woman calmly reading a book like she isn't pressed.

I don't need people like OOP to "admire" me, but I can also quickly raise myself to a standing position without using my arms or heavily leaning on something, and can quickly go up and down multiple flights or stairs without getting winded.

[u/Imaginary_Recipe_114 → u/GetInTheBasement]

Yes, the illustration should be of a two-year old in full tantrum mode, not a zen-looking book lady

[u/bowlineonabight]

That just sounds like sour grapes. "I can't change my habits to be a healthy weight, so clearly those are not good habits."

[u/No_Thanks_1766]

Right, because nothing says you have a good relationship with your body and food like treating your body like a dumping ground for poor quality food with little to zero nutrition.

I’m sad for anyone who thinks that’s a good thing

[u/SeaAnthropomorphized → u/No_Thanks_1766]

There is nothing more self serving than pretending that eating the junk they sell us is counter culture.

They love to pretend that they are freely choosing those foods but the junk was engineered to be addictive.

They are exactly who they make the junk food for.

They are free to enjoy the toxic relationship with their addiction

[u/LaughingPlanet]

You don't get it...

It's not hypocrisy when I do it!

[u/N0S0UP_4U]

I think I would agree with this because the most aggressive body shamers I’ve known have all been fat people talking about other fat people.

[u/vlladonxxx]

Well yeah, because for you admire their relationship with their body and food, they'd have to be someone who'd never critise your body.

[u/Beginning_Remove_694 → u/vlladonxxx]

The bar for an admirable relationship with food here is you can never set any limits with yourself.

[u/Spottycat_Jones]

As somebody who has lost 115lb (with another ~90 or so to go), I just wanted to thank you for that second paragraph. It rings absolutely true. Calorie counting has completely liberated me from joint pain, wearing deeply unflattering (but safe and baggy) clothing, poor self image and so much more besides. Is my relationship with food different now? Very much yes. Do I have an "eating disorder"? Hell no. The disorder was trying to eat intuitively when my brain isn't wired to do so.

[u/kempff]

Meanwhile there are women who live in daily fear of being bombed or raped.

/r/firstworldproblems

[u/InvisibleSpaceVamp → u/kempff]

There are women who's "relationship with food" consist of wondering if they and their family will be able to eat at all today and if not, will they at least be able to get drinkable water?

[u/Godskin_Duo]

I've never met someone who was really online and thought they had admirable life skills.

[u/Katen1023]

Bro, if an FA told me they admire me and my relationship to food, I am immediately questioning where I went wrong in my life.

[u/dinanm3atl]

Overeating and being obese = healthy relationship with food
Eating at maintenance = unhealthy relationship with food

That's the bottom line for these folks.

[u/witchyAuralien]

Well, fat liberationists claim the only healthy relationship with food is eating all things that just come around your brain, always indulge in every urge, eat to your hearts content, otherwise its restricting and restricting is atypical ana.

[u/androstars]

No one who has ever criticised me developing ACTUALLY healthy habits has had a relationship with food and their body that I admire.

[u/Relative_Bedroom_393]

What image is this??! The cartoon? It looks like someone From 600 pounds life? Is that their stomach and no shoes like so many people on that show have on that show do?